Three Quarter Beat
by Writer of a Thousand Colors
Summary: "You'll have fun, maybe meet a girl..." Ballroom dancing and love are the same thing - exercises in insanity. Ravis was always a crazy one. Latvia/Fem!Sealand


Ravis isn't exactly sure why he is here.

He's standing in the middle of a spacious ballroom – well, a makeshift ballroom. The building was a warehouse, but the city council had bought it three years ago and converted it into a meeting room. Right now, the huge conference tables are shoved up against one wood-paneled wall, and a blonde, tall, imposing woman with eyes like chips of ice is teaching a class of ten girls, two other guys and Ravis how to dance the waltz.

He blames Toris for this. "Ballroom dancing will be fun!" his brother had insisted, shoving the neon blue flyer advertising Miss Louise's Beginner's Ballroom course into his hands. "You'll have fun, maybe meet a girl..."

"Felka talked you into this, didn't she." Ravis didn't even need to see his brother's face to know that he was looking sheepish.

Toris had smiled apologetically, green eyes warm with affection. "Yep. And if you don't go, I'll probably be the only guy there. Please come share my misery with me?" His smile turned hopeful, and Ravis resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"But why me?" he asked, looking up through his dishwater blonde fringe. Toris raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What, would you rather I bring Eduard?" he replied, amusement coloring his words. "I don't really want to be sued by this Louise woman for the damage that our clumsy Eduard will be sure to inflict."

Ravis's eyes were like stones as he stared steadily at his older brother. Toris kept his gaze just as firm, and a moment passed in silence as they glared at each other. Ravis's shoulders dropped after a moment, and he rubbed at his face with one hand. He suddenly felt exhausted. "Alright, I'll do it. But you've got to make some _b__iezpien maizītes _for me in return."

Felka tugs at his hand, drawing Ravis out of his reverie just as Miss Louise finishes her demonstration by saying, "And now partner up, and we'll go over the part I just showed you." Ravis feels a brief wave of panic, and he looks at Felka with desperation in his eyes. She shrugs, then gestures at Toris who is studying the floor as if to say she's already got a partner.

Ravis stands there awkwardly as the people break up into couples around him. Felka and Toris stand there, already in position, looking so graceful and natural that it makes him want to puke. The only other guy in the class – a nice enough young man named Søren – stands by his own partner, Jenz, a lovely blonde Danish girl, waiting for more instructions.

Ravis is about to go up to Louise to ask her to just stick him with a partner when someone taps him on the shoulder. He wheels around, fighting down the urge to shriek like a little girl.

The young woman standing there looks about his age, maybe a year younger. She's tiny, with short, straight blonde hair yanked mercilessly into two tight braids and tied off with bright blue ribbons that match the color of her ocean blue eyes. She looks relaxed in her long, swishing white skirt and clunky black high heels.

"Hi," she says, looking him straight in the eye, and Ravis resists the urge to shrink back from the sheer amount of confidence in her voice. "My name is Peta Kirkland. Care to dance?"

Ravis's voice feels stuck in his throat as his mind struggles to find words. Peta's lips curve upwards, azure eyes waiting. "Usually it's the bloke who asks the girl," she says mildly, "But I thought you would need help, so I took the liberty of asking. So, I repeat. Care to dance with me?"

"S-sure," he stutters out, and then winces and curses to himself. He'd thought he'd kicked his bad stuttering habit – a trait he'd had through all of his school years that had only been cured from years of therapy. He'd only just recently been able to greet strangers without stuttering – why was he doing it now?

Peta holds her hands up, and Ravis, feeling very uncomfortable, scoots closer so he can rest one hand on her waist. Her hand is dry, the palms callused. Ravis knows his is sweaty and slick, and he feels ashamed for being so afraid of this young woman.

"You never said your name," Peta tells him, looking up at him through her bushy eyebrows. There is a teasing edge to her smile.

He mentally smacks himself, and opens his mouth to say, "I'm Ra-" but then Miss Louise starts up a classical music and they are swept up into the dance. Ravis's words hang half-completed in the air, and there is laughter in Peta's blue eyes.

He is tripping over his one feet, fighting to stay upright and make sure his hand doesn't slide right out of Peta's hand. In his peripheral vision he can see his brother and Felka moving as one, so beautiful and light that they look like they are walking on air. Ravis briefly wonders why Toris protested coming to this class so much – he looks so natural, with an easy grace in his steps and a warm affection on his face.

Peta is a brilliant dancer. Her hand on his shoulder guides him as they step backwards, to the side, then forward, and he turns her as he fights to keep his center of balance so he doesn't tilt over. She moves like she doesn't need to think about like she is doing, like she is the dance itself, personified, like the music is whispering to her what to do.

"Good!" Miss Louise barks after a minute, and she shuts off the music rather abruptly. Ravis freezes misstep, but Peta keeps moving, dancing, and once she realizes that Ravis is no longer moving with her, it is too late and she's already falling.

He catches her, just barely. Her head's about three inches away from the floor. Her blonde hair is coarse between his fingers, but it doesn't feel disgusting or dirty. He lowers her gently to the floor, then offers her his hand to haul her to her feet. His cheeks are flushed so red that he feels like his face is about to blow up from the sheer amount of heat.

Peta grins at him, showing that she has dimples on her cheeks. "Thank you, Ra," she says, and then curtsies and turns her attention to Miss Louise. Ravis feels like he's been hit in the face with a frying pan, although he's not sure why.

Miss Louise tells them to practice the steps she taught them, and to email her if they can't make next week's class before she dismisses them. Ravis reaches out his hand to try and see if he can get Peta's attention, but's skipping across the room, to where a irritated young man with the same bushy brows as her just opened the door. Ravis stands there, one hand outstretched, as Peta takes her bag from the man and shuts the door behind her, not looking back once.

...

The moment Miss Louise releases them next week to find their partners, he grabs Peta's arm and blurts out, "M-my name is Ravis, and I'd like to d-d-dance with you," before his mind can catch up and stop him short. Her hair's down this week, he notes, and it curls in at the edges, framing her face. It just barely brushes her shoulders.

She looks mildly shocked for a moment, then her face relaxes and she wordlessly puts her hands up into the correct position. Ravis, feeling shy, steps forward and places his hand on her waist. "I thought you would wimp out," Peta comments mildly, grinning up at him.

"W-what?"

"Wimp out." Her teeth are very white, even against her pale skin. "My brother said that you seemed too shy to ever ask someone to dance. But then again, he's completely oblivious to this girl at his office, Anna Jones, who is crushing on him so hard, so I take everything he says with a grain of salt."

Ravis feels very confused. "I d-don't understand what you're t-talking ab-about..." he mumbles, looking down at the floor. Peta giggles, but he can tell she isn't laughing at him.

"My brother," she replies, "Is just an arse. Don't worry about it."

He is better this week with the dancing – he doesn't trip at least, and he doesn't drop Peta. He spins her without falling over his own feet, and when the music stops they both glide to a gentle stop. Peta looks thoughtful, then nods. "Better than last week," she declares, "We might make a dancer of you yet."

Her smile makes his heart feel funny – jumping around in his throat, dancing a jig on his stomach. This week, Peta waits for him to accompany her to the door and tells him to have a good weekend as her brother eyes him over Peta's shoulder. Her brother is a short man, though not as petite as Peta, with the same blonde hair as Peta, but his eyes are as green as a forest at night. They darken when Peta gives Ravis a brief hug.

Felka gives him a searching look when he stumbles back to them, redder than Antonio's reddest tomatoes, and smiles knowingly. Ravis flushes even deeper and hides his face behind his hands.

Toris is oblivious as he chats on about what they're going to do for dinner.

...

The next week, Miss Louise declares the class passable at the waltz and moves them on to the salsa. Peta moves over to Ravis without either one of them saying anything, and rests her hands on his shoulders. He gives her a questioning look.

"No hand holding this dance," she says, shaking her head. She looks particularly nice today – her hair's been crimped, and tied back with a blue silk ribbon. She smells like peppermint tea and burnt scones. "Just step-" she puts one foot forward, and Ravis steps back as he rests his hands on her hips, "-and step, and step, and now back, back..." she trails off. Her hips shimmy nicely under his hands.

The fast paced salsa music starts up before he has the chance to say anything, and they dance in silence, trying not to bump into the other couples. Ravis rather likes the salsa, more so than the waltz – it's more energetic, and he doesn't feel like he has to fret over the fact that he can't glide like his brother and Felka, two angels on air and as graceful as a leaf in the wind.

He's breathing hard once the music stops and Miss Louise dismisses them for the week. Peta still standing by him, chewing on her lip, and Ravis is about to ask her if anything's wrong when she whips around and blurts out, "Will you come get some tea with me?" Her face is flushed, hope bright as a fire in her eyes, and his heart's doing a salsa in his chest and he can't stop himself from saying yes.

Peta's entire face lights up, and she grabs at his hand. "I know this great little cafe a mile or so away – they've got the best tea, and they make these excellent cheese pastries – I don't really remember the name; it's something like _biezpien maizītes-"_

"I love those! They're from my home country of Latvia, and beyond getting my brother to make them I can't find them anywhere!" Ravis blurts out, and he barely has a second to note that that's the first sentence he's said to Peta that he hasn't had to force out before she's hauling him over to the door to get her bag from her brother, saying it's shocking that he likes them so much too. Ravis wonders, briefly, if he should tell Felka and Toris he's not going home just yet, but he figures they can wait.

...

It's a cool fall afternoon, and there are wet leaves colored crimson and gold plastered to the darkened windows of the shops lining the street as Peta and Ravis hurry towards the warmth of the tea shop, hands shoved in their coat pockets, noses buried in their scarves. The streets are damp – it must have rained during their dance class, and the air smells refreshingly like molding leaves and mountains in the early morning, which makes no sense as they live miles away from any sort of mountain range.

"It's up ahead," Peta says, gesturing towards a chalkboard sign set in the middle of the cobblestone walkway, advertising Earl Gray tea and speciality hot chocolate. She pulls him into a small cafe decorated with warm gold and orange tones, and a floor that squeaks every time they take a step. They order hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and cinnamon and two _biezpien maizītes. _

They draw back into a spindly table by the window, sitting on chairs so thin and fine that they feel like they'll break if they so much as twitch the wrong way.

Peta fills most of the silence – she is talkative, bright, witty. Ravis feels content to munch on his pastry and listen to her stories about her brother and his sorta-not-really-almost girlfriend Anna and his arch-enemy/best friend Francis Bonnefoy – Ravis nearly spits out a mouthful of hot chocolate when Peta so causally mentions the name Bonnefoy – Francis Bonnefoy, world famous French model and chef.

"D-do you really know him?" he asks weakly, and Peta shrugs, looking amused.

"He and my brother met in college," she replies, taking another bite of her pastry. There are crumbs clinging her her face, but Ravis feels too shy to point them out. "He's nice, I guess. Bit arrogant – to be expected; he is famous. He can cook a hella lot better than my bastard of a brother." She says the words without any animosity, and Ravis wonders if she means them at all.

"He's got this massive crush on Anna's twin sister, Madeline. It's pretty cute, but Maddie's as oblivious to Francis as my brother is to Anna," she continues, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. There's a mustache of it arching across her upper lip when she sets down the cup. Peta doesn't seem to notice as she tilts her head back to grin at Ravis.

Even though she's got a chocolate mustache, crumbs on her chin, leaves in her hair and her cheeks are flushed from the cold air, Ravis cannot help but think that Peta is the prettiest girl he's ever met.

"I'm in college myself right now," Peta says, picking her pastry up again. "I'm not sure what I want to do. My brother – Arthur – wants me to become a writer, or something like that. Something that'll keep me quiet and out of the way." She smiles bitterly. "That's why he signed me up for the ballroom lessons – so I can be the perfect sister to the aristocrat."

"A-are you aristocrats?" Ravis asks shyly.

Peta shrugs again and glances out the window as a biker zooms past. "I guess we are. In a way. My brother works in some government branch, and he makes a ton of money, and he's always being invited to these fancy parties – he's even met the Queen of England!"

"He ha-has? What does he d-do?"

"I don't know." Peta seems to deflate a little bit. She purses her lips, looking irritated. "He never talks about it, really. It doesn't matter much, anyway. What do you do?"

"A-as a job?" Peta nods. Ravis twists his fingers in the rich red tablecloth. "...I work for my brother. He-he's a t-tailor. I help r-run the shop. My other br-brother, Eduard, keeps t-track of our finances."

"That's so cool! Can you sew? I've always wanted to learn but my brother won't teach me, 'cause all he's good for is embroidery."

Ravis glances up at her, shock on his face. "Y-your brother c-can embroider? M-my brother usually hires his gi-girlfriend to do it, since w-we're all terr-terrible at it."

Peta smirks, tilting her head down and looking at him through her fuzzy blonde fringe. "My brother," she says wickedly, "Would honestly be the perfect girl – going on about tea and unicorns as he does all the time."

"W-what?"

"Oh yes, unicorns! He talks to them!" She cackles into the rim of her dark violet mug, still half-full of steaming hot chocolate, blue eyes dancing with merriment. "Mum sent him to a ton of therapists when we were kids – didn't do a thing! He lives in his own fantasy world half the time."

Ravis giggles, then starts coughing as he inhales his hot chocolate and it goes down the wrong tube. Peta immediately jumps up and starts slamming her hands onto his back, bringing tears to his eyes as he tries to tell her he's fine.

They're both laughing through their panic.

...

They finish the salsa, and move onto tango, and then the ChaChaCha, and then an American swing dance that has have the class tripping themselves up and flying into the papered walls. Tea after dance class becomes a daily ritual for Ravis and Peta, and they always get hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and cinnamon and _biezpien maizītes _and sit at the table by the window on chairs that feel like they'll break if they twitch the wrong way_._

And slowly, Ravis starts wondering how many dance classes it takes to fall in love. How many times you have to trip over your own feet with your dance partner to go head over heels for them. How many times you need to share hot chocolate and cheese pastries to realize that the person you're sharing them with is someone you can visualize spending a good chunk of your life with.

He can't figure out when he started loving Peta for being a girl with a crazy smile and a wicked sense of humor, who ate like a pig and danced like an angel, who shouted at drivers who cut her off and who argued heatedly with people Ravis would be afraid to say a word to, let alone yell at.

He loves how she talks – funny stories that make him laugh in the middle of serving a customer at his brother's shop, strange thoughts that keep him up at all hours thinking – and her smiles – her teasing one, when she is talking about her brother, and her truly happy one, when she has good food, good drinks and is sleepy and warm.

So on the last day of classes, right after Miss Louise hands out their certificates and declares them all ballroom dancers, he pulls Peta over to a quiet corner of the used-to-be-a-warehouse ballroom, away from his brother and the knowing eyes of Felka.

Staring at her face, with her wide blue eyes and small, confused smile, words fail him, so he shoves fear aside and leans forward to press a chaste kiss against her lips.

She kisses him back, and he swears he can hear her murmur, "Finally," but he's too ecstatic to care.

* * *

**Author's Note**

**Peta is Peter/Sealand, if anyone was confused. **

**This was requested by a friend on dA for the Make Me Suffer journal I put up. She asked for cute Sealand/Latvia with extra fluff, so this was the result.**

**May I say that romance is one of the most frustrating things for me to write. The entire time I was writing this I could swear I was getting a cavity from the fluff.**

**Oh yeah - _biezpien maizītes_ are Latvian cheese pastries, and I could imagine Ravis liking them.**

**Also, how many Hetalia characters were genderbent in this and who are they?**


End file.
